Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sejs" data-source="post: 2553830" data-attributes="member: 4910">Generally the impact is similar to that which occurs to a real-world settlement when a war comes around and kills off all the able-bodied combatants.  Either the non-coms carry on and life sucks for a while and the population eventually refills, or they end up merging into another settlement's population nearby.  This is assuming another, neighboring group doesn't roll by and incorporate them on its own initiative. That's a very distinctly modernistic viewpoint, one that's right up there with subduing evil-doers and bundling them off to the 'proper authorities', presumably so they can be carted off to prison.  Taking up enemy war orphans and placing them in some sort of foster care program falls squarely into the same category.    Well, first off, in my games a group isn't made up solely of combatants and helpless children.  There are non-combatants even amongst warrior societies such as those of orcs or hobgoblins.  The elderly, the infirm, those too young to fight but able to fend for themselves, and those who flat out just arn't warriors.  To take a note from Warcraft, peons whose job it is to chop lumber, quarry stone, raise pigs, build buildings, farm crops, and any of the myriad other jobs that are needed to make a society work that arn't done by the beefy guys who're primarily concerned with the kicking of asses.  After all the fighters have fallen, they're the people who carry on.  Chances are they'd probably end up merging with other decimated groups for mutual survival.  They'd probably end up moving to a new location, or rebuilding if it's a viable option.  The orphans of those wars of attrition would be raised by other surviving members of their own societal group.  Bobby Orc's mom and dad were killed in the fighting against the Thorncrown elves.  Now Bobby Orc and his older sister live with Greg Orc's family. Almost certainly not, and to do so would be foolish from a sociopolitical viewpoint.  You'd be raising an entire sub-community within your own society that will hate and revile you.  That's just asking for trouble.  Assuming some kind of major decimation such that the remains of the defeated enemy could not carry on under their own power, they would most likely wind up as refugees in some third, neutral nation.  They either take care of themselves, or they go to someone who wasn't directly involved.  They certainly do not run to the people who just killed the bejesus out of their family and friends and ask for help. They most certainly can.  I don't see Create Food anywhere on a paladin's spell list, but I certainly do see that they get Smite Evil.  Paladins are soldiers.  They are not social workers.  "I'm sorry, I can't stop that orcish horde that's rolling over the countryside raping, burning, and looting as it goes - stopping them will create orphans, and I can't have that on my conscience."  I don't bloody well think so.   Short answer: no, they are not expected to.  As for where, see above statements on survivors. Again, above.  These societies do not exist in a vacuum. As the saying goes, War is Hell.  It carries with it a lot of unpleasantness that has to be dealt with in the aftermathWar and its repercussions, however are, on their own, neutral on the good-evil axis.  Just because something is bad, or not pleasant, or uncomfortable, or inconvienant, does not, and I can't stress this enough, not make it evil.  Burning to death sure is a bad thing, but does that make fire evil?  No, of course not.  Cancer does horrible things to someone afflicted with it, but does that make cancer evil?  No, just tragic. This may come across as rather harsh, but take it in stride, one DM to another: you run a pretty myopic game.  Honestly, if you're interested in running a game where there are realistic consequences for violence, read up on our own history and look for general trends.  It's been my experience that the more realistic and 'living' you can make your game world feel to those involved, the more everyone seems to enjoy it.  Fair enough.  Thank you for sharing your thoughts on the matter.</blockquote>

Verification